Toni Morrison is "beloved" in France, said the country's culture minister as he inducted the celebrated U.S. novelist into the elite Legion of Honor. In a ceremony held in a gilded hall in the ministry, Frederic Mitterrand pinned a red-and-gold medal onto the celebrated author's jacket. Mitterrand called Morrison — a Nobel laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize — "the greatest American novelist of her time." Access Atlanta reports that Mitterand told Morrison, "I want to tell you that you incarnate what's most beautiful about America … (that) which gives a black child, born during segregation into a modest family in a medium-sized Ohio city an exceptional destiny," as she listened on from a gilt-covered armchair nearby. "You were the first woman writer to tell the painful history of Afro-Americans." Toni Morrison's contribution to society through literature is unparalleled, especially in this day and age. Congratulations to the "beloved" author.